Saturday, December 03, 2016 – The Morning After the BIG Event, Clean Stk. Ctr., Supplies back to FM, Mail from Grandkids

Well, it’s the day after the BIG community event, the “Christmas Walk & Tree Lighting.” And it was truly a community event. The Visitor Center’s Christmas tree is considered to be the “Nauvoo Community” tree and so this tree lighting was for the whole community. The opening prayer was offered by one of the Pastors at the Nauvoo Presbyterian Church. The pre-show and post show music was provided by the Warsaw High School Jazz Combo. In addition to the Mission Choirs musical performance we also had the Warsaw High School Choir sing several wonderful holiday favorites. They were very good.

Our Mission President, Pres. Hall spoke to us about serving our fellowman and we also heard from the Area president of the Chamber of Commerce. President Hall had about twenty reserved seats for dignitaries that were here to attend the program. They included other community and church leaders. This event was truly for everyone in the whole community and is anticipated and looked forward to by people from all around the region. 

This morning we were up early again, this time to join with our district and do our Stake Center cleaning assignment. After we were done, several of them came with Sis. Johnson and I to help pick up, pack and haul all of the supplies left at the Family Living Center that were used for the “Christmas Walk & Tree Lighting.” With their help we hauled everything back to FM. With their help we were done and back home early to enjoy our P-day.

 

On our way home we stopped by the mail room and we got mail from home! We love it. This time we got letters from Nathan & Valerie’s daughters, Elizabeth and Ella. Earlier this week we got letters from their kids and today we got more. We love mail from home.

Sis. Johnson and I haven’t had much sleep lately because of all the preparation for the “Christmas Walk.” Last night we didn’t get home from setting up until 10:30pm and Sis. Johnson didn’t get to bed until after eleven. Then she was couldn’t sleep past 4:00am.  Then after we returned from our morning chores she went right at it again prepping 20 large centerpieces to give as gifts to all of the sub-committee chairs.  She didn’t finish until late at night.

I’ve been burning the candle at both ends too. Last night I edited pictures and didn’t finish my facebook post until 2:00AM

Each night I write in my journal (This journal) and I edit all of the pictures I take. I crop, enhance, adjust color & brighten or darken to make them as good as I can. I give each picture file a name/title. I run them all through Microsoft “Outlook” to reduce their size down to a manageable one to two hundred kilobytes so they will upload to Facebook and my blog quickly and easily.  Then I create a caption for each one and using “Paint” I add the text and date each picture.

On a normal night I go through 50 to 100 pictures. I select the best and add captions to about 10 to 20 of them. This is no easy process. By the end of the night I average between 3 to 5 hours of work. During a typical week I almost never get to bed before midnight.  But I seem to function OK on six to six and a half hours of sleep per night. An occasional nap in the afternoon helps.

I consider lack of sleep a small price to pay for my journal, my facebook posts, my blog and eventually the printed copy of my journal I will have made. I hope my efforts will bless the lives of my sons and their families, their children (our grandchildren) and all my descendents some day.